Would you rather? - Page 1

French ring or Schutzhund?






 

You are EXTREMELY lucky to have a Ring club "down the street", and a Schutzhund club 30 miles away.  I can speak for many people on here that we drive hours to go train...one way.  As far as what to do, the GSD is a natural for Schutzhund.  If you are looking for real life protection maybe you should find a PSA club to train with.  Schutzhund is great for the dogs though.  It is a routine sport as far as the day of the competition, but don't think training is routine.  It is very complex (3 phases) and takes ALOT of your time.  You can always train your dog through Schutzhund, and if you are worried that he wont bite the man, you can do some suit work with him.  I have done a little here and there once my dogs were mature to know that they would bite an intruder in my house.  Hope this helps.

I have a French Ring 1 title on my female. She is 7\8 th Czech breeding. I went to FR because she did not show a deep calm bite and that the FR sport showed a more relaxed OB and more challenges on the agility side. As you mentioned the FR dogs (specialy the Mals bred for FR) are very high prey drive and not necessarily very hard dogs. I doubt your GSD is as high in prey as are the Mals. I left the FR club because the bitework corrections were coming from the decoy and not the handler. This confused my dog because she has a fairly high level of defence and did not accept or understand to play the game that way. 
 
I would interview the DT at the FR club as to training philosophy (decoy vs handler corrections) and to whether he understands German Shepherd dogs. If you are the one correcting the dog and your dog has medium to high prey drive you guys should do fine in FR. Good luck.

GG

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all of the above is very good advice and insight. You should go and watch each trainer before investing time and money into your quest. I have seen a few individuals who can train all types of bite work, and I have seen trainers willing to take your money and have no ability to train. Some sport groups will not want to invest time and energy into your quest for a home protector so take your time and investigate. How ''real'' do you need your dog to be? What do you bring to the table other than a puppy and a check book?

they are both sports, all the sports are just that, sports.  just because a dog bites a suit doesn't make it real, it just makes it a really big sleeve :)

and what sort of protection dog do you need?  I love testing dogs and pressuring dogs and training beyond sport and titling in sports, but all I really want my dogs to do is look tough and bark a bit.  If shit really hits the fan, i'm going to be protecting my dogs the best I can.  Not the other way around.

They are both sports, and translate to real world protection the same way someone taking martial arts does.  If the skills learned helped in a real situation, it would be more about the individual's ability to put them to use in the situation than the training for the sport.  IE I can put my kid in martial arts, and it can help with their coordination, stamina, knowledge of how to hit, etc.  But if they weren't going to defend themselves before the training, they probably won't do it after either, unless there was a confidence issue that the training helped resolve.

If your dog is naturally inclined to be protective is may be more inclined, and capable, to actually protect after sport training, but if I really needed my dog to protect, I sure wouldn't depend on strict sport training.    I've known SchIII and FRIII dogs I would never take down a dark alley, and I've known dogs just starting out in their training with no titles I'd take down that same alley who were even better after training.

Since you feel you would enjoy both sports, go check out both clubs, and see which has a training style that will best fit you and your dog.  See which group you can see spending a significant amount of time with over the next couple of years, because that is what it will take to title the dog to a III.  Also talk to each of them about your desires for the dog and see if either will do some protection training on the side.  Then if you feel both clubs are a comparable fit, you can pick based on which sport you think looks like more fun or which one your dog is better suited for.

How it translates into "real" protection probably has more to do with the dog's genetics and how YOU train your dog. Both can be more of a prey game where the helper is more involved with correcting, rewarding, etc or you can make it more real if that's what you want and you have a trainer/helper/decoy who can work your dog this way.  Trial routines/exercises aside, it's really what YOU make of it.  I've done SchH because that is what is available to me (and I still have to drive 2.5 hours each way for it) but by no means am I just messing around with my dog training trial routines over and over.  We do suit work where the dog is finding a helper in the woods, fighting a helper in a barn, etc.  I've also done SDA (which is actually my favorite style of protection and IMO *the* most useful as far as what would actually go down if I were walking my dog and a bad guy approached us).  Both SchH clubs I've trained with have been perfectly willing to try other scenarios and help me with the SDA exercises.

^^^

very good points.